Elbert County is State's Newest Designated Entrepreneur Friendly Community

ATLANTA, June 13, 2006 – Elbert County in northeastern Georgia has joined the state's ranks of 'Entrepreneur Friendly' communities, an official designation indicating the community is developing an environment conducive to small business and entrepreneurs. Elbert County is the 19th community in the state to earn 'Entrepreneur Friendly' status from the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD)'s Entrepreneur and Small Business Office. 'Encouraging and supporting our homegrown businesses and entrepreneurs will help create quality jobs for Georgians,' said Governor Sonny Perdue. 'By helping local communities support the growth of small business, we ensure prosperity and opportunity throughout the state.' An 'Entrepreneur-Friendly' community must complete a program instituting guidelines and strategies that build a local environment and culture to support entrepreneur and small business development. Elbert County also completed a two-day assessment by a review team that identified strategies to implement entrepreneur and small business development programs. Additionally, county leaders asked local entrepreneurs and small business owners to evaluate Elbert County's present environment for small businesses. More than 95 percent of the business licenses issued by Elberton last year were for small businesses. "Working toward this designation has given us a new awareness of the challenges of starting a successful small business,' said Anna Grant Jones, executive director of the Development Authority of Elbert County, Elberton and Bowman. "It is such an asset to have a state-backed program of this caliber to guide us. The initiative helps us promote the strong history of our granite industry as well as the Northeast Georgia Artists Trail. It will also help us attract more technology and web-based small businesses to downtown Elberton.' 'Elbert County has taken a proactive approach to sustaining its small businesses,' added Chris Clark, chairman of the Georgia Entrepreneur and Small Business Coordinating Network and GDEcD's deputy commissioner of Global Commerce. 'We congratulate the community for taking the steps necessary to ensure its small businesses will thrive and thus play an active part in Elbert County's strategy for local business development.' The Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD) is the state's sales and marketing arm, the lead agency for attracting new business investment, encouraging the expansion of existing industry and small businesses, locating new markets for Georgia products, attracting tourists to Georgia, and promoting the state as a location for film, video and music projects, as well as planning and mobilizing state resources for economic development. For more information, visit www.georgia.org.